


Strange Perks + If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

by kamja



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fantasy, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamja/pseuds/kamja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino gets turned into a dog, and Ohno takes him in. Told from Nino's POV. Both parts are being posted together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Perks + If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

Part 1: Strange Perks

 

It’s 6:30 in the morning, and Ohno is frying eggs in the kitchen. I’m still burrowed inside an old quilt on the living room floor by the couch. It smells faintly of sawdust and whatever Ohno uses as an air freshener in his car. When he found me on the side of the road, he’d pulled that quilt from the back seat and wrapped me in it.

It was Christmas, and like all stories where a kind-hearted person gives shelter to a helpless animal, it was snowing. For some reason I thought we would end up at some holiday party where a small child would pull my ears and try to feed me cake. But no, we drove back to his apartment and he gave me a bath, and he fell asleep while waiting for me to finish drinking a dish of water. Ohno had work on Boxing Day.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day now, and Ohno never got around to giving me a bed. I guess he decided that the quilt was enough. The smell of the eggs is everywhere now, and I poke my face out of my hiding place. Then I hear the familiar heavy rustle of my kibble bag and I dart out, the metal tags on my collar clinking.

“Hey there,” Ohno pets my head in his usual way; firmly with a light scratch behind the ears. As I crunch away at the kibble, he walks around the kitchen while sipping a cup of coffee and watching the news from a laptop on the counter. Disney now owned Lucasfilm, but there were apparently no plans to make more Indiana Jones. I always hoped I’d find some ancient treasure while digging around as a kid.

He eats a cinnamon roll after he finishes the eggs, and I quickly lick up a large crumb of icing that drops to the floor before he notices. Being a dog had very strange perks -- well, I would have never thought of them as perks back then. But now Ohno is going back to his room to change, and now things are different.

He’s using some type of new soap, and I can tell easily because dogs are good at that type of thing. When he reappears in the kitchen, his skin reeks of it, mingling with the fabric softener he uses on his work shirts. A sigh, and then a sniff, while he adjusts his tie in the dim reflection on the shiny microwave door. He puts on his coat and steps outside, opening the door to let me follow. I walk with him for the three blocks to the train station, and that’s where we part ways for the day.

It’s illegal to let your dog run around without a leash. I know because I read the signs posted in the park. Ohno was responsible enough to get me registered, but he seemed to forget this part. Maybe it’s because I’m smart enough to avoid getting caught, and so the local shelter never had to scold him. I slip into the shadows after Ohno disappears into the station. Following the back alleyway towards the local temple, I meet up with my pet.

Yes, I have a pet kitten. It’s perfectly legal for cats to roam around, which sounds like a pretty stupid double standard to me. It’s mostly pointless to try to talk to her, or to any animals really, since they don’t use grammar and would never have an opinion on Indiana Jones anyway. But she keeps me company while I keep bigger animals away, and I like simple things.

She pounces on my tail as we lay around on a sun-soaked patch of grass. The crisp sky is really blue, and I wonder if Ohno is avoiding work by pretending to answer emails. Then my cat is suddenly still, the soft weight of her paws pressing down on my tail.

“Look,” she says, and I raise up my head although I already knew who would be there.

For the past week now, we’d been watching a man come to Ohno’s apartment at lunchtime every day. He would go up to Ohno’s mailbox and look at it for a while, before shaking his head and leaving. We tailed him at first. He returned to what seems to be his workplace, a small office building a few streets away.

We get up from our spot and creep behind the hedges lining the street, tailing the man. As usual, he stops at Ohno’s mailbox and looks at it for a while. Just when I think he’s about to leave, he does something new. He slips an envelope inside.

There’s nothing to do but wait until Ohno comes home. I watch my cat hunt down a mouse. She gives it to me, but as usual I let her have it. A raccoon sidles up, looking for scraps, and I chase him off. Finally, my pet goes back home to her spot under the wooden veranda at the temple and I sit outside the apartment for Ohno.

“I wonder why you don’t wait at the station,” he says as he unlocks the door. As much as it would please me to be his own little Hachi, it’s too easy to get caught while sitting by the station entrance. I dash inside, eager to soak up some heat against the chilly evening temperatures.

He has the mail in his hand, and when he sees the envelope, he drops the whole pile onto the kitchen table. Ohno pulls off his tie with one hand and goes into the bedroom. He throws his blazer on a chair and sits on his bed, slowly undoing the buttons while staring off into space. I lounge on the floor and act like I’m not watching too intently, but I watch all the same because I’m a dog and I can.

His skin is perfectly smooth underneath the shirt, and I wonder what it would be like to be human again, and to lay alongside his perfect body, and to touch that skin with my own.

Being a dog had strange perks, indeed. But right now, I also feel kind of sad.

There’s a letter inside that envelope, and I jump onto a chair and read it while he’s making dinner. What a pathetic man, though I pretty much guessed it already. They had broken up on Christmas. My stomach twists as little as I get to the end, but it’s okay. Ohno didn’t name me after him.

“Did I save you, or did you save me?” Ohno mutters drowsily. The apartment is quiet except for the slow tick of the clock in the living room. I bury my face into the warmth of his shirt and he pets my back in his way, firmly but not unkindly. Everything smells like fabric softener and the soap from this morning had thankfully faded away, because that stuff was driving me crazy. I climbed into his bed for the first time tonight, and he doesn’t say no. I wonder, just a little before dropping off to sleep, if he was waiting for me to do it all along. 

 

Part 2: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

 

Whenever I got pissed off at work, I used to sneak out the back and smoke by the Wishing Stone. The town legend said that a travelling monk came to this place many years ago, and he granted a small child a wish by that stone. That child became a great scholar as an adult.

It was the end of term, and the Stone was covered in tokens from students and parents.

What a load of crap, I would think, tapping ashes onto the ground. I wished and wished, and even got into university, but somehow I still ended up working at a video rental store. I should have wished for freedom. I was tired of living by society’s rules. I wished I didn’t have to put up with all this crap.

That was the last time I smoked. That was the last time I went to work and wore clothes and typed on a keyboard. That was the last time I was able to speak.

When I woke up the next morning, I was a dog.

Although it’s his day off, Ohno’s awake at the crack of dawn. I lazily roll over as he sits up and gets out of bed. My smaller weight is no match for a full-grown person, and the mattress shifts in a strangely nostalgic way. It’s sort of like when I used to sleep in my parents’ bed on the weekends as a child.

Ohno stretches and walks around the room, opening the blinds. The dim sky doesn’t make the room any brighter. He turns on the radio with a light tap of one finger. The weather report is on, and he rummages through his shirt drawer while humming to himself. I jump out of bed, my nails making a dry, abrupt sound on the wooden floor. I pad out into the kitchen for the water bowl.

He lets me outside for a while, holding the door open while eating some bread. I dive into the hedges, trying to remember where I’d hidden that ball. Sometimes, I simply feel like chewing on something. I find it’s easier to just go with the weird dog urges.

Before I know it, Ohno’s calling for me, and I rush out, shaking some dirt off my face. The burnt smell of a running motor means we were going somewhere. As I get closer, I pick up the slight salt smell of the gear piled in the back of his car, and that means we were going fishing.

“What the heck have you been doing?!” he exclaims as soon as he sees me, and I realize that I’m covered burrs. Ohno picks them off me with quick little motions while I gaze at his face.

At first, I never came when called, because I kept forgetting he had named me Sammy. But it’d been so long since anyone had called me Nino, that I wonder if I would forget that was my real name.

The boat that Ohno rents is creaky. The fishy smells hanging on every surface overwhelm me, and I sit quietly with my nose towards the wind. It makes my ears flap back and I can hear Ohno snickering a little as he watches me. Whatever.

The summer sun is beaming down on us now, and he peels off his sweatshirt and drops it by his tackle box. He sits down next to it and changes the line on his pole. I immediately come over to lay next to him, burying my face in his sweatshirt while the curve of my back is up against his hip. Ohno pets me absentmindedly as he searches through the tackle box for a hook.

He hums the same tune as this morning. I close my eyes and try to hold onto the faint smell of his detergent lingering in the sweatshirt. The rocking motion of the waves, however, start to make me feel seasick. But I don’t mind. I don’t mind, if it means we can go on like this forever.

All summer and into autumn, Ohno sings a song in his gorgeous voice, and finally his neighbor comes over to help him make a video.

“Put it on the internet,” she says a bit gleefully. Her husband worked a lot, and she had twins who started school this past March, much to her relief and mine. They tried to paint me green.

I watch her carefully from my spot on the sofa, and I decide that she doesn’t have a crush on Ohno. It was more likely that she was enjoying the feeling of living vicariously through him.

“You sure?” Ohno says uncertainly, but he posts it anyway.

A few days later, he goes to work and leaves me inside the apartment because it’s raining heavily. I stare at his laptop for a full ten minutes before I try to turn it on with my paw.

It whirs to life, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I let it go in a huff. It’s not like I’ve never used a computer before.

I had laid awake for half the night after Ohno had uploaded the video, listening to the slow rise and fall of his chest as I tried to remember my youtube password. It would’ve been no problem to make a new account, but that would’ve meant extra time and I had no idea what chances I would get.

The eraser end of the pencil in my teeth taps the keyboard awkwardly, but I’m determined to get the job done. Besides the neighbor and a few of his friends, no one else had commented on the video. I takes me over an hour to post.

Good job, I look forward to hearing more.

After he comes home, Ohno doesn’t say anything when he’s on his computer. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. Then, he leans in close to the screen suddenly and grins. A new tune swirls out into the air as he goes into the kitchen to heat up some leftovers.

I sigh happily as I sun my stomach by the window like my cat.

On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.

In October, a gorgeous-looking guy comes over. He squats down to greet me, and waits there with a smile until I approach. He smells like expensive cologne, which makes me hate him. However, he’s kind and intelligent, and I end up listening to his conversation topics even though I’m supposed to be ignoring him.

They sit around for a while and do some work-related thing. A paper floats down to the floor and I take a glance at it before Ohno reaches down to pick it up. I curl around his ankles under the table, but before long he tries to get up.

“Want any coffee?”

“Sure -- lemme help you.”

The water’s boiling and they’re making doe-eyes at each other, and I realize that romantic moments are disgusting from a dog’s point of view. They start kissing, and I’m mesmerized by the sharp angle of Ohno’s jaw as he leans forward. That other guy puts his hand on Ohno’s hip, drawing them closer together. I slither out from under the table and wedge my body between their legs. Mr. Romance is obviously unused to being around dogs, because he makes a startled movement. They break apart, nervously. That’s right. I’m the dog, and I can do whatever I want because I don’t know any better. I turn towards Ohno and he scratches behind my ears in his usual way.

“Sorry,” he says apologetically, and he starts moving, and I follow him because his hand is still petting my head. That’s okay. Apology accepted.

Before I realize what’s happening, I’ve followed him over the threshold outside. He turns around, whiplike, and closes the apartment door in my face.

I bark because I’m surprised, and because I feel betrayed. It’s totally silent as the early evening settles in. I decide that I don’t wanna be around here, if they get loud.

My cat is creeping after a crinkled leaf on the temple grounds. We chase it around for awhile, and the game helps me forget what must be going on back home. One of the temple girls call out by a side door. She sometimes feeds my cat, if there’s a scrap of leftover fish or whatever. I trail a bit distantly behind as we go investigate. The girl notices me, but she doesn't say a word.

I wander off into the rock garden and lay down among the large boulders. I rest my chin on my paws, and I think, not for the first time, about going back to the Wishing Stone. 

In December, I realize that I had to run away. I think about it for a week, and then I just do it one afternoon after saying good-bye at the temple. My cat looks at me with her round eyes.

“Play again?” she asks, and I promise I’ll come back for her.

I sneak onto the back of a truck going home to my town, but I’m forced to jump off before I’m even halfway there. After that, I walk and hide under bus stops and eat scraps I find in trashcans. The winter descends with more fury, until finally, I’m digging myself a shelter in the hardened snow. The night blizzard rages on, and I close my eyes to block out the wind.

“Ah, look, he’s awake!”

It smells like oden. I can feel people approaching, and when I open my eyes, I’m in an unfamiliar room. A woman and some children crowd around me.

“He’s so cute!”

“His face is just like a little fox!”

Over the next couple of hours, the pieces come together. The children had found me while playing the snow, the morning after the blizzard. The family owned another dog, large and shaggy, and I’d been sleeping in his bed for half the day. He comes over to look at me.

“Runaway,” he says gruffly, but he slumps down next to me on the bed anyway. They’d all seen my tags.

“I wanted to be human again, so I could be near Ohno,” I reply, fully aware that he wouldn’t get it.

“They go, I follow,” he replies, and leaves it at that. He dozes off. I settle next to the warmth of his body.

“Awww, can we keep him?” one of the children asks.

“No, he belongs to someone else,” the mother replies, and I notice that she’s on the phone before I drop off to sleep as well.

I hear Ohno before I see him. He’s mumbling an apology and when I look up, he’s seated at the kitchen table with the mother.

“So far from home,” she says.

“He’s never done it before,” Ohno replies, taking a sip of tea. “Thanks again.”

I jump up then, and run across the living room towards him. He gets out of his chair and bends down to greet me like so many times before.

“Hey you.” Ohno smiles, but I notice the dark circles under his eyes. There’s a faint trace of paint thinner around him, and it makes my skin prickle when I realize with a start that it meant he hadn’t been eating well.

“Ready to go home?”

 _He goes, I follow._ Perhaps the plain wisdom of animals was not so bad after all.

On my second Christmas with Ohno, we found each other again.


End file.
